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A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Weekend Writing Warriors: June 30, 2013

Welcome, warriors! And welcome to SnipSuns and anyone else who wanders in. Holy cow--It's almost July! All that's left of June is the whining that it flew by so fast!

Weekend Writing Warriors is a
weekly blog-hop. Each week, participants sign up HERE
at Weekend Writing Warriors, then post 8 sentences of their work,
published or unpublished, to go live between 12:00 noon Saturday, and
9:00 AM Sunday EST. Then we visit each other, read, comment, critique,
encourage--all those great things that do a solitary writer's heart
good.

Set up: This week is a big change-up. If you participated in SixSunday, you might recall that I posted some journal entries from my MC, who is homeless and delusional. This scene takes place pretty early in the book. Rissa (in her dreams) is actually Marissa in the here and now reality.

She's convinced that her "crazy" dreams are actually memories of two years of her life and of a missing newborn baby. I know. A lot to take in. Swordplay, her handsome lover Cuylrh, her friend Jia, troublemaker Dhurstan, and the evil Daekartha all exist in her dreams.

This is part of a journal entry. Izzy is at the desk of the shelter during the night shift. I'll continue it next week. Journal entries are part of reality.

*note You might encounter creative punctuation :-)

"This morning, I woke up from my dream because Izzy called
for me, and that is odd. Not odd that Izzy called me, but that her voice woke
me up. I learned during my therapy and treatments that,
generally, dreams are penetrable—that another person can communicate or make
suggestions to the dreamer—and that includes waking up the dreamer. But that
was just one more thing the doctors discovered about me they had no explanation for. My dreams are
impenetrable, as solid as if they were built with rock walls. I’m in my dreams
for the duration. They could only guess when I was dreaming from heart rate and
p.e.t. scans. But, so typical--their lack of understanding didn't stop them from prescribing pills that made me feel as crazy as they all said I was."

That's
it. What jumps out at you, good or bad ? I'd love to hear it and am
truly grateful for every bit of criticism, opinion, and shared wisdom.
Thank you so much for visiting! Sundays are extra busy for me right
now, so it might take me several days to return visits, but I will. Have
a great week, all!

48 comments:

I did a lot of research into dreams before writing this. And, Yikes! I wrote it in 2005-2006. The way research is zooming ahead, I'll have to double check all of my "facts" with current data. :-) Thanks for visiting, AS. :-)

I love how *real* this character seems! You do such a great job of pulling readers right into her thoughts and feelings.

It's funny though. Recently I was thinking about that scene with Marissa finding herself in a dark place, hearing what seemed to be a baby crying and finding what seemed to be a pretty scary monster, and I was thinking I'd like to read more about Marissa now that I've read so much about Rissa :-D

It's a challenge to find the right voice for each of them, because technically, they are the same person, after all. BUT, Marissa has been through hell. Before her missing two years, she was a typical person. Now she's lost a child, has vanished memories. I'll stop there. Just suffice to say she is not the same person.

:-( well I left a comment earlier - but I guess the gods of the internet ate it. Lovely snippet - quite tense and worrisome for the MC. Only suggestion is I don't believe you need the "up" after woke (just a nit). Great #8

Teresa, I worked nearly ten years as an RN on intensive care psychiatry in Minneapolis, but you have taught me more and it sounds credible. I thought that I knew a lot about delusions and hallucinations, but you have added a new dimension for me.

Thanks, Sam. I've witnessed it in the psychiatric group. And a truly scary book on the subject is called, "The Antidepressant Solution" by Joseph Glenmullen. It's a crime the way too many doctors indiscriminately prescribe unneeded or wrong medicine. Thanks for visiting and all of your kind words.

Wow, that IS a lot to take in, but such a cool idea, Teresa. I love that you have her in a mental ward. It reminded me of the song Astronaut Dreams by Peter Meyer (you should check it out). Nicely done. I was totally captivated.